When Clare Carruthers, mounted on Sir Lancelot and escorted by Cæsar, arrived at Poynings on the following afternoon, she was surprised to find Mrs. Brookes looking well and cheerful. The girl had brought good news. Mrs. Carruthers had borne the journey well, and it was proposed that she should leave Paris and proceed to the south of France after the interval of a week. Clare roamed over the house and gardens as usual. She was beautiful as ever, but with a new and graver beauty than of old. There was no observant eye to mark the change, no kindred spirit to note and share the girl's trouble. She was quite alone. When she returned from her ramble, and while her horse was being brought round, she went to Mrs. Brookes's room to bid her good-bye. The old woman took two letters out of her desk, and said: "Do you remember these letters, Miss Carruthers? You brought them to me when Mrs. Carruthers was first taken ill." "Yes, I remember. What of them?" Clare answered, carelessly. "Will you have the kindness to enclose them in a large envelope, and direct them to Mr. George Dallas for me?" "Certainly," said Clare; but she looked a little surprised, for Mrs. Brookes wrote remarkably well for a person of her class. "I wrote to him lately," said Mrs. Brookes, "and the letter did not reach him; so I suppose I directed it indistinctly." Clare sat down at the table, and in a large bold hand wrote the address which Harriet had given upon the envelope. "You are sending Mr. Dallas these letters that he may read them, as his mother is unable?" asked Clare, to whom the forbidden subject of Mrs. Carruthers's son always offered more or less temptation. "Yes, ma'am," replied the old woman; "I am pretty sure they come from Mr. Felton, and ought to be seen to." "And who is Mr. Felton?" said Clare, rising and laying down her pen. "I'll post them as I pass through the village," she added. "Mr. Felton is Mrs. Carruthers's brother," said Mrs. Brookes. "He has been in America many years, but she said something lately about his coming home." Clare said no more, but took her leave, and went away. She posted the packet for George Dallas at the village, and, as she rode on, her fair face bore the impress of a painful recollection. She was thinking of the morning on which she had ventured to send the warning to him who was so unworthy of the fancies she had cherished--him of whom she could not think without a shudder, of whom she hardly dared to think at all. When the post was delivered the following morning at the Sycamores, a large packet was placed before Miss Carruthers. It was directed to her, and contained two numbers of the _Piccadilly_, with two instalments of George's serial story, and on the fly leaf of one were the words, "From Paul Ward." CHAPTER XX. ONCE MORE TIDED OVER.